When She Tried to Win Me

When my emotional infidelity was discovered, I loved her (or at least believed I did), but I was in love with someone else. I wasn't in love with my wife.

I was discovered on a Thursday morning. She called me at work where I was instant messaging my adulteress, and told me she had evidence that I was having an affair, and that I needed to come home right away.

That weekend we checked into the nicest suite at a nearby hotel to work things out.

I was fully willing to end the physical part of my relationship with my "friend". I'd been kissing her for a couple of weeks now, and I could give that up. But we'd been very close friends for two years, and I was not willing to give that up. My wife (and everyone else who knew) was demanding no less than total separation: I was never to have any contact with the other woman ever again.

I wasn't willing to do that.

So my wife threw herself at me sexually. She attacked me almost savagely, trying to win my heart by pleasuring my body and blowing my mind. She gave so much to me for eighteen months, dancing, stripping, wearing costumes, talking dirty, whatever she could think of to capture me.

To my enormous shame, nothing worked. I wallowed in depression and the loss of my "friend". I was so heavily medicated my libido shrivelled to nearly nothing. She may never forget the day she walked in wearing high heels and a feathered boa --- and nothing else --- and I said dully, "thanks for trying," and rolled over.

She felt completely abandoned. That's why she eventually ended things between us.

Not long after the separation, I finally got a handle on the depression. I really beat it, even without drugs. And that allowed me to begin to heal, just a little. And six months after the separation started, my heart finally broke and I fell in love with her.

Her love for me had completely died by then.

So now I follow her example, trying to kindle love in her, into a heart severely battered not just by me, but by the men she met and tried to entice while we were separated. I must carefully observe her mood and body language, to know whether to back off or pursue, whether to lavish words on her or keep silent. The slightest misstep can cause fear and rage in her. She doesn't trust me at all. Or at least, that was the case until very very recently.

The main place where she doesn't trust me is my depression. I still fight it, like an alcoholic fights his disease. Sometimes I need drugs to help; other times exercise and appropriate eating habits are enough to keep insanity at bay. See, when I'm depressed, I believe untruths, seeing all the negatives and none of the positives. And that causes me to say and do things that hurt her deeply.

Her greatest fear is that I'll become depressed again. She said to me, "I don't think I could ever pledge 'in sickness and in health' to you. Because if you get depressed again, I'm gone. Without the slightest hesitation."

And so, beyond anything else, I must ensure that I never, ever, ever become depressed again. Whatever the cost.